Enstone

Interesting, but somehow various Austin experiences over the years leads me to doubt that the phrase 'runs like a champ' had anything to do with any item made by them or their later associates! :)

I did once have what once started out as a BMC (Austin) mini, heavily modified by John Sprinzel (sp?) and then further modified by yours truly with a 1340 cc, Webber carbed, race cam'd A-series pushing out about 90 -

100 BHP. Used to have to slip the clutch up to about 5,000 rpm to get it moving but once it was going it was genuinely scary! Screamed like a banshee, went like the proverbial excrement leaving a shovel, stuck to the road like s**t to blanket (you get the hyperbole idea) but I doubt it could be classed in the 'champ' running category! :)

Mark

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Stop it Kim, I shall begin to wish I'd hung on to mine - want to swap it for a Cyclemaster ;-) I'd go along with Mark's observations about starting though, it felt much larger than it's 300cc per pot and, even with the built-in retard of the Wico impulse mechanism which mine had, could deliver quite a bite - get it wrong and 'chauffeur's fracture' would be a distinct possibility.

This is going a bit O/T. IIRC the champ used a RR engine. Admittedly it was a 4 cylinder truck engine but certainly not a BMC one. Was it the same engine that BMC used in the Princess R?

Even further O/T. The Mini sounds like it needed sorting better. I have a similar specengine in mine. 1400cc, 2 x 1.75" SU's 548 cam and most of the other bells and whistles. Good low torque and enough revs to make me happy. Gives about 90bhp at the wheels. Once dragged a laden 14ft caravan up a 1 in 7 on Dartmoor with it. Left in in 2nd to see if it behaved. Crested the top at 1200 rpm on full throttle smooth as you like. Got many a surprising look holidaying with that car considering it had all the rally stuff on as well. As you say, BIG FUN but reliability and motorways weren't it's strong points.

John

The Champ engine was the Rolls-Royce industrial B40 engine, 3 litres 4 cylinder, made as a waterproofed unit as were the B60 and B80 (there were various marks of these, and B41, B61 etc) Austin produced the Champ engine under licence from R-R with a cast iron head and block. The gearbox was a modified Austin Westminster unit.

The Princess was a different engine altogether, ali head IIRC and nothing in common at all.

The batteries (can't answer your email quickly without running IE and getting onto easynet's webmail site) were at Aylesbury East Grid s/station, pictures on the company website if you are interested.

Peter

-- Peter A Forbes Prepair Ltd, Luton, UK snipped-for-privacy@easynet.co.uk

Aaahhh the celebrated Austin Champ. Killed more squaddies between the wars than any enemy action. They had a very high centre of gravity and could tip over at the drop of a hat.

To make it worse they had a forward / reverse selector box before the all syncro 5 speed box, this means they had 5 forward speeds and 5 reverse speeds.

When the squaddies found this out and started races to see who could go fastest in reverse the accident rate increased somewhat causing the Ministry to discontinue the Champ and sell it off.

Most went thru the Ruddington depot near Nottingham. A large bulk of these were bought by some Canadian company as off road vehicles. The company I worked for at the time, D&M Transport, had the contract to collect these from auction, store them at Castle Donington and them forward ship these to Liverpool for onward shipment to Canada.

We ' borrowed' one of these as a service vehicle but it didn't do much as we couldn't afford to keep fuel in it. They were terrible, about 9 or 10 to the gallon. It was that bad you had to throw a sack bag over the headlights when approaching a filling station so it couldn't see the pumps.

For the record one of our drivers could get flat out in third going backwards, about 40 mph. No one else could get near this, most ran into the parked Champs after the first gear change

-- Regards,

John Stevenson Nottingham, England.

Visit the new Model Engineering adverts page at:-

As you say John, it needed sorting out. Yours was clearly more tractable than mine. In my youthish enthusiasm I fitted a full race cam (don't remember the number now) but it was not designed for 'fast road use' as they used to designate them. With a nitrided crank and being lightened and balanced (with beefy main bearing straps) it was good for 8,000 to 9,000 revs (only for a few thousand miles). It didn't come 'on cam' until about

4,000 to 4,500 revs and so much clutch slipping was involved with the standard ratios. I took it round Brands Hatch and was thoroughly impressed as it really was well suited to the track; it was a bit of a pig for general road use. The problem may have been the Webber 40 DCOE jetting. Again, the carb was set up for maximum power at maximum revs not low range torque).

It was still the generator of the hugest grin on the open country roads. For all of its foibles and intractable nature it was still much more fun than anything I've played with since.

BTW, how do you get 1400 cc? In the days of yore when I was a boy, 1340 cc was the most you could get from the 1275 before the cylinder walls were paper thin. I'd be interested to know the secret.

Mark

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1340cc was a standard +.060 rebore. You could bore beyond this by ofsetting the bore centres and going to 73.5mm. This gives 1400cc on a standard stroke. If you use a 1300 crank and offset grind the big ends to Cooper S size bearings then use S rods, you get to 1450cc. Some went bigger using longer strokes but 1450 was generally considered the best A series. All detailed in David Vizards books on the subject. See here, was generally reconed that the bigger engines and SU's smoothed the cam efect. Incedentally, I've still got my beasty. She's resting at present but I fully intend to play the hooligan again.

John

It was generally reconed that the bigger engines and SU's smoothed the

Ah, thanks John. I vaguely recall this now that you mention it. My copy of Vizard's bible is somewhere in the depths of my over-stuffed loft and it is over 25 years since I built a quick mini engine so the memory has failed me somewhat. I do remember now a few guys running 1600cc engines, usually in the rally cars and super-saloons.

BTW chaps, this is not as totally OT as it might seem as mine, and it seems John's too, were/are definitely stationary engines (they just went like hell between rebuilds!). :))

Mark

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